What does it take to become a successful entrepreneur?

The most successful start-up I ever worked for was founded by a guy who was brought up in a village in the Indian Himalayas. He is now the richest Indian immigrant in the USA, with a fortune valued at $20 Billion.

Jay founded the Cyber Security Software company Zscaler (Full Disclosure: I have shares in it), for which I worked in Marketing in 2015 & 2016. He founded Zscaler in 2008 and it is now valued at $50 Billion on the NASDAQ. Zscaler had its IPO in 2018.

His house didn’t even have running water. His family was clearly not wealthy. Read about Zscaler, founded by Jay Chaudhry, here.

Jay Chaudry, CEO of Zscaler, grew up poor, in a Himalayan village

(Himachal Pradesh).

The second most successful startup I worked for was also founded by Indian immigrants to the USA. You can read about Visual IQ here. Nielsen bought Visual IQ (I don't have shares) for two billion dollars the year after I left the company.

Most startup founders I’ve worked for, have a genius of varying degrees, and an aspect of their personality that psychologists would define as ‘Hypomania’.

Harvard Medical School defines Hypomania as 'a mood state or energy level that is elevated above average, but not so extreme as to cause impairment'. The incidence of hypomanic personality is much higher than the average in immigrants and entrepreneurs (and those living in the USA, a country made up of immigrants).

Many people buy into the myth that the average successful startup founder is young - probably a guy in their mid-twenties. In fact, the average age of a successful startup founder is actually forty-five years old.  Right now, more black women are founding businesses than ever before.

I learned a great deal working for another founder in the US, again called Jay, who had been a child prodigy. At 16, he completed a triple major degree at Carnegie Mellon in Computer Sciences, Russian, and Mathematics. 

He went on to become the USA's youngest MBA at age eighteen and youngest management consultant at Bain & Co., again at age 18. 

Jay once told me that Carnegie Mellon told him that he was too young to pursue an MBA at their University at sixteen. 

He then managed to get an offer for a scholarship to take a PhD in Finance at Wharton. He threatened Carnegie Mellon that he would pursue his studies at The University of Pennsylvania if he was not accepted into their MBA program. 

That's how he got into Carnegie Mellon's MBA program at such a young age. 

I became Jay's Head of Marketing and right-hand man. It was fun, but it was also torture. Jay was 'always-on', which was exhausting for an average 'regular joe' like me.

“Following your dreams is dangerous,” a 31-year-old woman who runs in social entrepreneurship circles in New York, and asked not to be named, told Quartz. “This whole bulk of the population is being seduced into thinking that they can just go out and pursue their dream anytime, but it’s not true.” 

The truth is that founding a company is typically not a purely rational act. A Founder has to have outsized confidence and vision in themselves to put his or her plan into place. 

This is not necessarily the act of a normal person. By that logic, not everyone can be an entrepreneur. The fact that I have worked for so many startups means I have at least a little of the entrepreneur's mindset myself. 

These are the characteristics I've seen in most entrepreneurs I've worked for. You might want to call it genetics, personality, or something else entirely:

1. He (or She) is flooded with ideas.
2. He is driven, restless, and unable to keep still.
3. He channels his energy into the achievement of wildly grand ambitions.
4. He often works on little sleep.
5. He feels brilliant, unique, chosen, and perhaps even destined to change the world.
6. He becomes easily irritated by minor obstacles.
7. He is a risk-taker.

Does this sound like an entrepreneur or founder, as you know? 

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Please check out Feedspot, a great blog founded by Anuj Agarwal. I'm excited to say that Feedspot has chosen my blog to be on its list of the top 200 tech blogs. I'm honored—thank you! Here's their list.